Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.” “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.” The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes. His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!” He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

—Job 2:3-13 (TNIV)

Today, the story about Satan’s diabolical plot to drive a permanent and irrevocable wedge between God and humans continues. Satan intends to show God that even (or perhaps especially) the righteous and godly do what they do because it pays, i.e., they are rewarded for doing good. This would show God that his creation is radically flawed, that redemption is unthinkable because even the most godly of people would be exposed as really being evil. God would therefore have no basis in taking delight in the righteous because they are the most self-serving of all.

Two things stand out in this passage. First, that Satan can use even our loved ones as vehicles of temptation. Notice here that he implicitly uses Job’s wife to tempt Job to curse God. (Read Job’s comment about foolish women in its context. Job is not saying that all women are foolish; he is simply calling his wife foolish for suggesting he curse God.) In the midst of our sorrow, in the depths of our despair, we must always be on guard against falling into Satan’s snare and temptations. In my experience, this is one of the hardest things to do and that is why we must call out to God for help.

Second, we are introduced to Job’s three friends and they perform their duty as grief counselors magnificently. Notice they do not offer platitudes or try to fix Job’s despair. Instead they grieve with him and they do so silently. The next time you are called to offer help to those who grieve or are in despair, remember this lesson. We naturally want to try to help others who suffer, which is a good thing. But in the case of grief, words will usually not do the trick. Let your presence be your words. Never underestimate the comforting power of your presence to those who grieve. Your words matter little. Your presence matters a lot because by being there for those who grieve, you are really telling them that you love them and care for them.

What wonderful profundity [deep insight; great depth of knowledge or thought] there is in your utterances [in Scripture]! The surface meaning lies open before us and charms beginners. Yet the depth is amazing, my God, the depth is amazing. To concentrate on it is to experience awe—the awe of adoration before its transcendence and the trembling of love. Scripture’s enemies I vehemently hate (Psalm 138:22). I wish that you would slay them with a two-edged sword (Psalm 149:6); then they would no longer be its enemies. The sense in which I wish them ‘dead’ is this: I love them that they may die to themselves and live to you (Romans 14:7-8; 2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

—Confessions 12.14.17

Anyone who has spent any time at all wrestling with Scripture can verify the truth of Augustine’s musings on God’s word. And wouldn’t we expect the depths of his word to be endless if indeed they come from God? When we start fooling ourselves and thinking we have mastered completely holy Scripture, we are surely succumbing to a sinful pride (not to mention delusional thinking). I love the wonderful humility expressed in Augustine’s writing here.

Notice too how Augustine expresses his love for the enemies of Scripture. He wants them dead. Not physically dead but rather for their sinful nature to die so that their eyes may be opened to the wondrous glory of God’s Scriptures so that ultimately they may live. This manifestation of real love sounds foreign to our ears today because the various enemies of the cross have misled us to believe that love always and only manifests itself in giving the beloved what it wants. However, as Augustine reminds us here, Scripture has a very different definition of love. Love indeed desires the best for its beloved and since God loves us and wants us to live with him forever, he desires that we put to death our sinful nature so that we can do so. He cannot allow the unholy to abide in the presence of Perfect Holiness (himself). He’ll help us do that, and he has solved the intractable problem of human sin through the cross of Christ, but we have to make the initial effort and keep at it our entire lives. It isn’t easy work but the reward for doing so is life forevermore. This is faith made manifest in our actions.

Lord Jesus! Teach me that I may teach them: Sanctify and enable all my powers; that in their full strength they may deliver your message reverently, readily, faithfully, and fruitfully. Oh, make your word a swift word, passing from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the life and conversation: that as the rain returns not empty, so neither my your word, but accomplish that for which it is given. Oh Lord, hear, Oh Lord, forgive! Oh Lord, listen, and do so for your blessed Son’s sake, in whose sweet and pleasing words, we say, Our Father…

If you want to know what the heart of a pastor looks like, a pastor who is humble and cares passionately about his people, read carefully these last three excerpts from Fr. Herbert.

The country parson is a lover of old customs, if they be good, and harmless; because country people are much addicted to them, so that to favor them is to win their hearts, and to oppose them is to deject them. If there be any ill in the custom, that may be severed from the good, he pares the apple, and gives them the clean to feed on.

—The Country Parson

For in preaching to others, [the priest] forgets not himself, but is first a sermon to himself, and then to others; growing with the growth of the parish.

—The Country Parson

Who would have thought my shriveled heart
Could have recovered greenness? I was gone
Quite underground; as flowers depart
To see their mother-root, when they have blown;
Where they together
All the hard weather,
Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

And now in age I bud again,
After so many deaths I live and write;
I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing: Oh my only light
It cannot be
That I am he
On whom they tempests fell all night.

These are thy wonders, Lord of love,
To make us see we are but flowers that glide;
Which when we once can find and prove,
You have a garden for us, where to bide.
Who would be more,
Swelling through store,
Forfeit their paradise by their pride.

—The Temple

Today I conclude this series of offerings from George Herbert, Anglican priest and theologian. I hope you will savor the wondrous grace expressed in this poem and use it to thank God for his wonderful blessings on us, even in the midst of our heartaches.

O God, by whose grace your servant Bernard of Clairvaux, kindled with the flame of your love, became a burning and a shining light in your Church: Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline, and walk before you as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

But [Jesus] said “Son of man” in order to show that he himself not only appears to be but in fact unchangeably is man, and again, is true God. It is not as if he were divided into different species, one part God and one part man; rather one may address him as Son of man with no doubt that this very same one is also the Son of God.

—Theodore of Heraclea, Fragment 101

Exhortation is a form of teaching. [For example] in giving Paul looks for liberality; in showing mercy, for cheerfulness; in caregiving, for diligence. For it is not just with money that Paul wants us to help those in need but with words, deeds, in person and in every other way.

—Homilies on Romans 21